So Mad Men (Sky Atlantic), the final chapter. Don, still On The Road, heading west, has reached Utah, where he races a car across the salt flats, searching for speed and plenty more besides. He’s better back in a car, than waiting by the side of the road for a bus; that didn’t suit Don Draper. He’s not bad in denim either.

“Hello, I love you, won’t you tell me your name?” Jim Morrison sings from the garage radio. It’s what a lot of people – women mostly – have been saying to Don for seven series. Dick, that’s his name, as Stephanie reminds him when he finally makes it across to LA. They head up the coast together, to a spiritual hippy commune/retreat with wind chimes and tai chi and beardy floaty people who ask “how does it feel?” a lot. Someone says “life is full of shoulds.”

Back east, and the partnership that should have happened – Harris Olson – almost happens, but doesn’t quite. Maybe that would have been too obvious. Joan goes it alone, in business, in life. Peggy finds love, unexpectedly, frankly ridiculously, on the phone (even though he’s just down the corridor) with Stan. “Hey Stan, how’s it going, what, you love me, no, though now you come to mention it, when I think about it, and talk about it, to myself like this, maybe … yeah, I realise I do, I love you Stan!” Along those lines, anyway. Nought to love in five seconds. It’s the one low of the show; and fortunately the silliness of that call is made up for by the intensity and sadness of the call between Don and Betty. Goodbye, even if it’s not the final final goodbye. Don’s having those conversations he should have had and needs to have, but long distance, via the operator, not face to face. With Sally also, who’s had to put her own foot down in her journey into adulthood, through necessity, as she prepares to take her mother’s role in the family. And with Peggy too; that relationship – between Don and Peggy – has always been a specially interesting one, even though/because it never wandered into the bedroom.

Pete, reunited with his family, boards a Learjet, which for Pete and his family is pretty much like walking up the stairs to heaven itself. Roger has – gets – the last laugh, in French! No one dies, yet.

Don isn’t looking too sunny, though, collapsed by the payphone at Shouldstock California. Stephanie has checked out, without saying goodbye; are those cliffs beckoning, just a few more steps west, Don – to The End by the Doors maybe? But a friendly hippy chick takes him to her group session, where Don discovers he’s not alone in the world – as well as discovering new hope, compassion, meaning – through a man called Leonard.

Leonard is, in some ways, the anti-Don, uncharismatic and invisible. But Don also recognises himself in him, his feeling of worthlessness, of being nobody, and ends up embracing Leonard (an unlikely hug is so much more of a big deal, and so much more moving, than a hug from a hugger). Next thing, Don’s cross-legged, meditating in the morning sunshine, contemplating a new day, new ideas, new life, new Don. Ommmmm. Cut to the I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing Coke commercial.

By Don Draper? Did he return to make it (it was a McCann Erickson ad after all)? The arguments will run and run, and will never get won. Personally, I hope he didn’t, but I think he did. That smile, was it really the om smile of a new hippy, or was it the smile of an adman with the seed of an idea: The Real Thing?

It doesn’t matter either way, a little ambiguity is a good thing. It’s all a good thing. Peggy’s out-loud talking herself into love aside, this last episode was so much better than all the crazy speculation going on before. Undramatic, underwhelming? No surprises, deaths, plane crashes, disappearances? No great leaps off buildings, off cliffs, into the future? But Mad Men never had the kind of narrative momentum that requires a crash or at least some very heavy braking to bring it shuddering to a halt. Apt then, and cool, rather than undramatic or underwhelming.

And this non-abruptness, along with the ends that are left only half-tied, all add to the sense that this is by no means the end for these brilliant, complex, three-dimensional characters who, over the past eight years, we have come to know so well, become friends with even. They carry on; it’s just that we don’t get to watch any more. And hell I’m going to miss it.